Google has big plans for Motorola Mobility, which it purchased three months ago for $12.5 billion. The tech giant started its re-tooling of the mobile phone maker by announcing that it would cut 4,000 jobs worldwide -- that's 20 percent of Motorola's global work force. Google sees this as one of the steps necessary for Motorola to catch up to rivals Samsung and Apple.

Google chief executive officer Larry Page believes that Motorola can be competitive in the phone market even though many thought Google's main purpose of the purchase was for Motorola's 17,000 patents.

"We're excited about the smartphone business. The Google business is built on a wired model, and as the world moves to a pretty much completely wireless model over time, it's really going to be important for Google to understand everything about the mobile consumer," Motorola chief executive officer Dennis Woodside said, according to the New York Times.

Woodside added that Motorola is going to focus development on only a "few cellphones instead of dozens."

But analysts are skeptical of Motorola's plan to enter a market dominated by iPhones and Galaxy smartphones.

Former Microsoft manager Charlie Kindel said via the New York Times: "Ninety percent of the profits in the smartphone space are going to Apple and Samsung, and everyone else from Motorola to RIM to LG to Nokia are picking up the scraps of that 10 percent. There's no real sign that's changing anytime soon."

The United States and China will be the main places where Motorola will set-up research and development.

Motorola failed to re-invent its mobile phones and didn't remain competitive after the smartphone revolution. Google's Android operating software may play a big part in the resuscitation of the once-popular Motorola brand.